Severe weather season has been a bit subdued until recently, but across the nation, we were near-average for February and March and well-above average for January, this likely due to a lot of tornadoes in California. Over the past few weeks, we've seen activity increase over the south-central U.S., but the east coast itself isn't as favorable for tornado formation climatologically (nor has it been this year).

Simply put, tornado formation is favored in regions of strong vertical shear...especially in the lowest part of the atmosphere. This is created where you have winds at different directions between these levels of the atmosphere and enhanced by having slower winds nearer the surface and stronger winds further aloft. This pattern tends to happen when you have an upper-level low passing nearby but to the north and west, resulting in strong, nearly west winds aloft and southerly winds near the surface. Most of the storms this year -- and climatologically as well -- tend to move either along the coast, keeping the threat near to the coastline, or a good distance to the west of the Appalachians, keeping the threat further west. This is an oversimplification of the problem - you need favorable thermodynamical factors (such as heating) as well - but helps to highlight one of the main reasons for such a pattern.

Things will continue to become more favorable as we head further intro Spring, but moreso over the south central US.